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Is The Pinball Market Crashing? | TMPM Feb 2025
14 Plays2 months ago
I answer the question everyone is asking, "Is the Pinball Market Crashing?" That along with Bally/Williams numbers, Data East Numbers, and how the market is fairing overall
Click here for all our social and merch links:
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Transcript
Is the Pinball Market Crashing?
00:00:00
Speaker
Is the pinball market crashing?
00:00:02
Speaker
We hope to answer that today, along with we've got percentages from the last year, the last five years, Bally Williams numbers and Data East numbers.
00:00:09
Speaker
And on top of that, it's going to shock you which one is performing the best out of those Bally Williams numbers.
00:00:15
Speaker
All that's coming up.
00:00:17
Speaker
This is this month's pinball market.
Acknowledgments and Merchandise Promo
00:00:39
Speaker
First off, that intro song.
00:00:41
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Thank you, Glenn Wechter.
00:00:42
Speaker
That was amazing.
00:00:44
Speaker
You know, he called me up.
00:00:45
Speaker
He said, I've got this idea for an intro song.
00:00:47
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I love the segment.
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I said, go for it.
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Two days later, sent that over.
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Holy crap.
00:00:52
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I want to get thanks to Zach and Nicole Many at Flippin' Out for supporting our content and making Loserkid possible.
00:00:57
Speaker
Also, if you like my Loserkid attacks t-shirt,
00:01:00
Speaker
Silverballswag.com slash loser kid.
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Speaker
You're looking for kicks, looking for pants.
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We will dress you from head to toe with hats, shoes, everything in the middle.
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Speaker
So go check us out.
00:01:08
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Silverball swag.
00:01:09
Speaker
All right.
00:01:10
Speaker
I got my notes here.
Aerosmith Premium MSRP Correction
00:01:11
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First thing I want to do is a correction from last month.
00:01:14
Speaker
Last month we were talking about spike two numbers and I talked about Aerosmith premium.
00:01:21
Speaker
The numbers that I said on there were correct, except for the Aerosmith released at MSRP of 6,500.
00:01:28
Speaker
The way that I do this is I've been going through, I'm trying to simplify my process so that way I don't get mixed up like I did this last episode, but I accidentally put the five-year number instead of the MSRP.
00:01:37
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The actual MSRP on that game was 7,900, so that's where I came up with the 52%.
00:01:41
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People were saying 6,500 and it's 12,000 now.
00:01:45
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That's more like 80% increase, and yes, you're right.
00:01:48
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So if you bought it five years ago and you have it today, that Aerosmith Premium, you've gained
00:01:54
Speaker
80 plus percent on that game.
Pinball Pricing Data Sources Explained
00:01:56
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Second, I want to talk about these numbers for a minute because people have a question.
00:01:59
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Where are these numbers coming from?
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How do they work?
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I get these from Pinside and I also get them from pinballprices.com.
00:02:06
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I want to give a quick thanks to Ted Finley.
00:02:08
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After we heard this segment, he's like, dude, I'll give you whatever you need.
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He sent over a list of stuff.
00:02:13
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There's a treasure trove of information here.
00:02:15
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I'm splitting these in two different ways because Pinside solely records Pinside numbers.
00:02:20
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Pinside has sales that go on.
00:02:23
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They record those numbers whether it's public or private.
00:02:25
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They don't share those private numbers, but they do use it for that algorithm data to show where the pinball market is trending for a particular machine.
00:02:34
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When it comes to 10 fiddling, his wonderful page, pinballprices.com, he is taking anything from auctions, from eBay, he's taking all those numbers on top of the pin side numbers.
00:02:45
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And so he's giving a little more of an idea of what's going on with the market overall.
00:02:49
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The interesting part about this, it doesn't really tell you condition, right?
00:02:53
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you might get a trash game on auction or via eBay versus a pristine one on Pinside and maybe vice versa on that one.
00:03:01
Speaker
So it's kind of hard to track those numbers.
00:03:03
Speaker
Another interesting part too is let's talk about Funhouse for a second, because this gives a good example of how hard these numbers are to track down.
00:03:10
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50 Funhouses were listed last year in 2024.
00:03:14
Speaker
Of those 50, 16 didn't sell to Pinsiders, which means one of two things.
00:03:18
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They actually didn't, they sold it via Facebook, they sold it via a local market,
00:03:23
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And, or they just didn't want to pay the fee for selling that game.
00:03:27
Speaker
If you've never sold anything via Pinside, every time you sell something, it is a tiered, like made of a mattress is like 80 bucks for selling that game.
00:03:34
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Something like that.
00:03:35
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That helps to go promote, keep Pinside alive and support their community.
00:03:39
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And sometimes people are going to circumvent that.
00:03:41
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Okay.
00:03:43
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So 16 didn't sell the Pinside, 13 sold, but keeping their price private.
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So we're at 29.
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The other
00:03:52
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Okay, so three actually sold and let us know what the price was.
00:03:56
Speaker
That is public.
00:03:57
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You can find it on Pinside.
00:03:58
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But if you look on Pinside, it shows more than three games sold for last year.
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So like I said, those private numbers are used in the data.
00:04:06
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You should go check their track chart, but it's not publicly
Pinball Market Correction Analysis
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known.
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So it gives you an idea of where the market's going.
00:04:12
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And the other roughly what, 2021 didn't sell at all.
00:04:17
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So the real question is, I asked the beginning of this episode,
00:04:22
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Is the pinball market crashing?
00:04:24
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By definition, when a market is crashing, it means it is a sudden dip and a sudden and just explosive dip or shoot up, right?
00:04:34
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Well, crash would be dip.
00:04:36
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So looking at these numbers, if we went via the stock market numbers, they consider a crash pretty much above a 20% dip.
00:04:47
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They actually have things set in place.
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So when it dips below like 7% or 9% in a day, the market just stops and you're not allowed to buy those stocks.
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And it helps kind of put the brakes on the scared selling.
00:05:01
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Let's go over Ted Finley's numbers.
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I feel like they give us a great idea.
00:05:05
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Is the pinball market crashing?
00:05:06
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Okay, let's go with EMs.
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So Ted is great on, if you've ever been to his website, he does it based almost off of decades.
00:05:13
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So we're 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, up to today, right?
00:05:16
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So EMs are those 50s, 60s, right?
00:05:18
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Last year alone, EMs went up 32%.
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And from five years, so we're going pre-COVID numbers, it's went up 69%.
00:05:25
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So if you own an EM today, you're more than likely making money on that EM if you decide to sell it.
00:05:32
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Early solid say, these are your Sterns, your Stern Electronics.
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So like Stars, Meteor, Black Knight, stuff like that.
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Last year alone, 18% increase.
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five years, 68% increase.
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You're still making money on those solid state games.
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Alpha numeric.
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So these are like these late 80s, early 90s.
00:05:53
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A good one to think of is Funhaus.
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That was an alpha numeric.
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So thinking of that, and these don't include, so the remake numbers don't include into these numbers right here.
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So alpha numeric, we flatlined 0% increase over the year, but a 33% increase over five years.
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Golden Age, DMD, we're talking Bally Williams.
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We're talking about those
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Those 90s that everyone's want, like the Addams Family, the Medieval Madness, the Attack from Mars, not the remakes.
00:06:19
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Golden Age, up 3%, and over the five-year, 54%.
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Modern DMD, so this is your Sterns, pretty much Sterns after 2000s.
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Modern DMDs are down 8%, but overall, from COVID, they're up 42%.
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And last but not least, LCDs, the ones that everyone's craving, everyone wants, the JJPs, the Spike 2s, they are down 10% over the last year and up 24% over the last five years.
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So when we're in that 10% range, we start hitting double-digit numbers.
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It's called a market correction, not a market crash.
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So right now we're seeing a market correction from where the COVID numbers were.
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Pre-COVID, we're still up.
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So these numbers are still solid.
00:07:08
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You're still good.
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Your market's still trending up.
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but we're seeing some fluctuation because of the economy and whatnot.
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Okay, let's get to the ones I think you're excited for.
Bally Williams Market Performance
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Let's talk Bally Williams first.
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I went through these numbers.
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I was a little thrown off because I assumed it's medieval madness.
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It's attack from Mars.
00:07:29
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Those don't even hit like my top 10.
00:07:33
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So let's go with the worst ones.
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Ready for this?
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This game is when you don't want to buy right now.
00:07:38
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Cactus Canyon,
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just the original, which makes sense because the remake has added code.
00:07:43
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It does a lot different.
00:07:44
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It's got the bells and the whistles where Cactus Canyon, you're really buying a beta game, right?
00:07:49
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The code wasn't done.
00:07:51
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And so over the last year, it's down 5%.
00:07:53
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Over the last five years, it's down 6%.
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We're really not talking terrible, right?
00:07:57
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It's funny because that's the worst one out of the list.
00:08:00
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Next up, it would be Doctor Who.
00:08:05
Speaker
So Doctor Who itself is down 11% over last year.
00:08:10
Speaker
And for the five year, we're up 18%.
00:08:13
Speaker
So this still tells me we're kind of bouncing out, right?
00:08:16
Speaker
These games are starting to find the ceiling of what they're worth.
00:08:19
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They're still up from pre-COVID, which pre-COVID, we still had a lot of people interested in pinball.
00:08:25
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We still had people buying pinball.
00:08:27
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The thing about the market is if they're selling too low, people just hold on to them.
00:08:31
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So it's hard to say like the market is crashing because people don't have to sell these games.
00:08:35
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They can just leave them in their collection if they're not getting the value they want out of it.
00:08:38
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So Dr. Hoop.
00:08:40
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And the third, so the third worst is no good golfers down 7% from last year, but we're still up 19% from the last five years.
00:08:52
Speaker
I actually went in and did the top five and these are going to be in no particular order.
00:08:58
Speaker
I'm just going to go by year because there's 47 machines in here and it's just, it's hard.
00:09:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:06
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So getaway 2% up over last year.
00:09:10
Speaker
57% over five years.
00:09:13
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This game was originally worth three grand before COVID.
00:09:15
Speaker
Now we're almost hovering around five grand.
00:09:17
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It's 4,700.
00:09:20
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World Cup soccer, one of my favorites, I got it over my shoulder right here.
00:09:24
Speaker
We're at 4% over last year and up 61% over the last five years.
00:09:26
Speaker
3,100 five years ago.
00:09:26
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And right now, five grand for that game.
00:09:37
Speaker
Sorry, 3,100 from five years ago, five grand.
00:09:40
Speaker
I don't want to mess up on these numbers because you guys told me too.
00:09:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:43
Speaker
Congo.
00:09:44
Speaker
This one's not kind of a shocker, right?
00:09:46
Speaker
Five grand five years ago, 6,500 now.
00:09:50
Speaker
There's a 0% increase over last year, 30% up over the five years.
00:09:55
Speaker
This one took me off guard, pun intended, NBA fast break.
00:10:01
Speaker
It was worth 2,800 five years ago, right now worth
00:10:05
Speaker
4,500.
00:10:05
Speaker
It's down 2% from last year, but still up 61% from five years ago.
00:10:13
Speaker
Not a shocker.
00:10:13
Speaker
Everyone's talking about this game should be remade.
00:10:15
Speaker
This should be on Pondretti's next list.
00:10:18
Speaker
Circus Voltaire.
00:10:19
Speaker
2020, or the end of 2019, we were looking at 7,200.
00:10:21
Speaker
Right now it's worth 11 grand.
00:10:21
Speaker
0% over the last year, but still up 53%.
00:10:23
Speaker
And the last one, this one,
00:10:33
Speaker
I was not expecting this one's out of left field for me.
00:10:35
Speaker
I just, yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
When I asked, I asked multiple people, what's the top, what's the top valuable pinball machine over the last five years?
00:10:45
Speaker
No one guessed this.
00:10:45
Speaker
You ready for that?
00:10:47
Speaker
Champion pub.
00:10:49
Speaker
5,200 before COVID.
00:10:50
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It's eight grand right now.
00:10:53
Speaker
8% over last year.
00:10:54
Speaker
So it hasn't taken a hit.
00:10:56
Speaker
It's one of the only ones that hasn't taken a hit over the last year.
00:10:59
Speaker
And over the last five years, we're up 54%.
00:11:02
Speaker
Overall, Bally Williams are down 5% from last year, but altogether up 38%.
00:11:09
Speaker
So these are great games.
00:11:10
Speaker
There's some that range as low as $2,500.
00:11:12
Speaker
There's some that go all the way up to $10,000.
00:11:18
Speaker
These are great.
00:11:18
Speaker
I know one thing that was said on the episode last month was people wanted to know good value games because they're trying to get into the hobby and they want to buy these games.
00:11:27
Speaker
Bally Williams is where
Data East Market Trends
00:11:29
Speaker
it's at.
00:11:29
Speaker
If you're looking for games that will increase over time,
00:11:32
Speaker
you still have some fun with them these are the games you're looking for okay data east i just got days list was surprisingly short because they only made 17 of them before they sold out uh to a different to to sega or capcom someone's going to correct me you you do your work all right number three so tied for third for most valuable uh dating east
00:11:58
Speaker
where they can't Lethal Weapon 3 and Hook.
00:12:00
Speaker
They both dropped 3% over last year, and they've both increased 45% over the last five years.
00:12:07
Speaker
Both games were worth 2,000 and 2,200, so Hook was 2,200.
00:12:09
Speaker
Lethal Weapon, 2,000, that was five years ago.
00:12:10
Speaker
Now 3,200 and 2,900.
00:12:11
Speaker
Lethal Weapon, 29, Hook, 32.
00:12:12
Speaker
Second place, Royal Rumble WWF, 2,805 years ago.
00:12:14
Speaker
It is up 46%.
00:12:29
Speaker
from pre-covid and last year it's up eight percent these these games are we're we're high twos lows threes i know that the games behind me the modern a lot of complete people complain when they're trying to get in the hobby these games are just too expensive these are great games you can buy enjoy the hobby and moving on to a better game and you're not losing value or you're gaining value over the life of the the unit so okay last one
00:13:00
Speaker
Kind of shocked me.
00:13:01
Speaker
You ready for this?
00:13:02
Speaker
TMNT.
00:13:03
Speaker
I'm not going to lie.
00:13:04
Speaker
This was the first game I ever owned.
00:13:06
Speaker
The code is not great considering this was the second DMD game ever made because DataEase started with Checkpoint.
00:13:13
Speaker
And five years ago, it was worth two grand.
00:13:17
Speaker
Right now, 3,100.
00:13:17
Speaker
It did not gain anything over the last year, but 55% increase over.
00:13:21
Speaker
Overall, last year, we're down 4%, but we're still up 34% overall on
00:13:30
Speaker
on the value of dated East.
00:13:32
Speaker
So those are some games, honestly, looking at the five years, none of them have went down.
00:13:37
Speaker
Every single day of the East has went up.
00:13:39
Speaker
And the worst negative right now is Batman.
00:13:46
Speaker
It kind of lost some value last year, negative 25%.
00:13:50
Speaker
So stay away from Batman, stay away from Star Trek.
00:13:53
Speaker
It went down 20% last year.
00:13:54
Speaker
And Maverick down 7%.
00:13:58
Speaker
But really, your two that are really tanking right now are Star Trek and Batman.
Conclusion and Upcoming Episode Teaser
00:14:02
Speaker
I just want to give a quick shout out, say thank you everyone that is supporting.
00:14:06
Speaker
If you want to check out more of our content, we're at YouTube at LoserKitPinball.
00:14:11
Speaker
The other thing is, I know I'm dropping this a couple days early.
00:14:14
Speaker
The reason being is we have a special episode planned this week, and I didn't want to drop that episode and then drop this episode.
00:14:21
Speaker
So I want to give some breathing space to this.
00:14:23
Speaker
If you have any questions for us, we are LoserKitPinballPodcast at gmail.com.
00:14:28
Speaker
or hit us up on all the socials at LoserKidPinball.
00:14:31
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in.